Weekend in Manaus

August 25, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope you had a nice weekend. Yesterday afternoon I arrived in Manaus. There isn’t too much to do here, so I went to the mall to get gifts to give during my meetings on Monday. The city is grittier than the others were. It’s hotter, less developed, and a little dirtier. It feels more like a central american or caribbean city. In the night, I went out in the historic center of town, near the iconic Teatro Amazonas. I had the taxi drop me at Bar do Armando, a famous bar for locals and tourists alike. It was crowded, so I walked around the open square and ate dinner outside at a restaurant called Casa do Pensador. I drank and ate and thought. The service was so slow. After dinner I went back to Bar do Armando and listened to the live music. It was a guy with a guitar. He was so good, I couldn’t leave so I walked around and sat around on various benches. One totally drunk guy came up to me and kept telling me how sorry he was for everything. He was particularly sorry that I had to be here for work. It’s not that bad!! I hung out for a little near a guy from Venezuela and a guy from Chile. The guy from Venezuela offered me acid.

I thought he has got to be kidding but then he took a baggie out of his wallet and a scissors out of no where and started cutting a larger tab into a smaller tab. Err, no thanks.

There was a very loud electronica concert near my hotel and it was bumping pretty difficult to fall asleep. This morning I woke up very early to go on a tour of the encontro das aguas (meeting of the waters – the Amazonas River and and Rio Negro) and other things. We also went on a canoe tour and checked out some enormous water lillies. The tour was really fun. In that picture you can see the water with two distinct colors. I hung out by myself and with a guy from Shanghai who works for Motorola but was here on business. I learned a lot about cell phones and international cell phone markets. People are really excited when you’ve been to their hometown. I’m lucky to be able to connect with so many people in this way.

This afternoon I had a taxi driver who jammed out SO hard to that jason derulo and snoop dog song. A lot of the taxi drivers here sing and groove to the radio. Many have their own music on a USB drive. I tried to tell this particular driver (and I think I was successful) that the music he is listening to is the exact same music we listen to in the states (and also that I really like snoop dogg). He had no idea and was very surprised at both of these things. This evening, I went back to the centro area and tried a local soup of green vegetables and shrimp, and then ended up eating for dinner beer and fried pastries. I was lucky to find a table at this popular fish and chips restaurant featuring local fishes. They brought me the wrong thing twice before getting it right. Tomorrow, work! By the way, the last picture is from a traditional lunch spot in Copacabana in Rio.